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GIFT  OF 
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(Copyright,   1906,  by  Francis  D.   Tandy  Company.) 


"J^eto  btrtlj  of  our  neto  soil,  tfte  ftr*t  American" 


A  Brief  Biographical  Sketch  of  Lincoln, 
Fitting  Appreciations  of  his  Character, 
and  a  Compilation  of  Selections  from 
his  State  Papers,  Addresses  and  Letters, 
Designed  to  Impress  the  Rising  Generation 
with  His  Intense  Americanism  and  Unfalter 
ing  Love  of  Country,  and  to  Inspire  it 
to  Deeper  Contemplation  and  Study  of 
His  Life  and  Achievement  and  to  Constant 
Emulation  of  His  Uplifting  Example 


Prepared  under  the  direction  of 
LINCOLN  CENTENARY  COMMITTEE  of  the  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK 

appointed  by 

His  Honor   GEORGE  BRINTON  McCLELLAN,  Mayor 
1908 


The  Lincoln  Centenary  Committee  of  The  City  of  New  York 
acknowledges  with  thanks  the  courtesy  of  the  Century  Com 
pany,  New  York,  Publishers  of  "  Abraham  Lincoln ;  a  History," 
by  Nicolay  and  Hay;  and  of  the  Francis  D.  Tandy  Company, 
New  York,  Publishers  of  the  "Complete  Works  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,"  for  material  relating  to  Lincoln  used  in  the  compiling 
and  for  the  purpose  of  this  Pamphlet  ..... 


Written,   Edited   and  Compiled 
by  Edward  Harold  Mott 


Copyright,  1909,  by  the  Lincoln  Centenary  Committee 
of  The  City  of  New  York 


MARTIN  B.  BROWN  COMPANY,  Printers, 
Nos  49  to  57  Park  Place,  N.  Y. 


Content^, 


TAG  2 

THE  LINCOLN  CENTENARY  COMMITTEE 4 

THE   PURPOSE 

"THE    FIRST    AMERICAN" 7 

BIRTH  AND  RISE  OF  LINCOLN '  11_16 

PATRIOTIC  WARNINGS  AND  APPEALS 17_<2G 

Foreseeing  a  Danger 59 

Reverence  for  the  Laws 20 

"  Eternal  Fidelity  to  the  Just  Cause  " 20 

Vigorous  Talk  to  a  President 21 

The  Way  for  a  Young  Man  to  Rise 22 

Danger  to  Liberty  in  Discarding  the  Ancient  Faith 23 

"  You  Shall  Not " 23 

"  A  House  Divided  Against  Itself  " 24 

"  The  Electric  Cord  "  in  the  Declaration 24 

Freedom's  Right  for  All,  WTherever  Born 25 

Brothers  of  a  Common  Country 26 

AS  HE  JOURNEYED  TO  WASHINGTON 27-30 

A  Pathetic  Parting 29 

The  Duty  of  the  People 29 

For  Support  in  His  Great  Task 30 

Willing  to  Live  and  Die  by  His  Faith 30 

A  MASTER  IN  THE  CRISIS 31-40 

The  American  Union  Cannot  Be  Broken 33 

A  Last  Appeal  to  Patriotism  and  Reason 34 

To  Save  the  Union,  First  of  All 34 

"  Freedom  to  the  Slave  Assures  Freedom  to  the  Free  " 35 

The  Shackles  Broken    (Emancipation  Proclamation) 36 

On  the  Field  of  Gettysburg  (Gettysburg  Address) 37 

Seeing  a  General's  AVorth  Through  His  Faults 38 

"  That  We  May  Not  Lose  Our  Birthright  " 33 

"  With  Malice  Toward  None;  with  Charity  for  All  " 39 

HIS  GREAT  HUMAN  SYMPATHY 41-44 

The  Loss  of  "  Tad's  "   Nanny  Goat 43 

The  Case  of  a  Man  Named  King 43 

A  Mother's  Sacrifice  Upon  the  Altar  of  Freedom 43 

In  Behalf  of  a  Soldier's  Widowed  Mother 44 

Recognizing  the  Sympathy  of  Young  Hearts 44 

THE   "SCURRIL  JESTER'S"   RECANTATION 45-49 

Abraham  Lincoln   (Punch's  Poem) 47 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Portrait   of   Lincoln Frontispiece 

Early  Home  of  Lincoln 11 

The  White  House,  Washington 

House  in  Which  Lincoln  Died..  41 


M567313 


Lincoln  Centenarp  Committee  of  tfje  €itp  of 

f  orft* 


EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE, 

His  HONOR  GEORGE  BRINTON  MCCLELLAN, 

THE  HON.  JOSEPH  HODGES  CHOATE, 

Ex-Officio. 

HUGH  HASTINGS,  Chairman. 
FRANKLIN  CHASE  HOYT,  Secretary. 
B.  W.  B.  BROWN.  HART  LYMAN. 

JACOB  A.  CANTOR.  PATRICK  F.  McGowAN. 

REGINALD  S.  DOULL.  HERMAN  A.  METZ. 

FRANK  L.  DOWLING.  CAPT.  JACOB  W.  MILLER. 

JOB  E.  HEDGES.  FRANCIS  K.  PENDLETON. 

GEN.  THOMAS  H.  HUBBARD.  HERMAN  RIDDER. 

WILL  H.  Low.  CHARLES  R.  SKINNER. 

HENRY  L.  STODDARD. 


f"T*HE  aim  of  this  pamphlet,  prepared  for  distribution  in  the  Public 

•*•         Schools  of  New  York  City  on  the  occasion  of  the  ceremonies 

attending  the   Commemoration   of  the    Centennial  Anniversary 

of  Abraham  Lincoln's  Birth,  is  not,  aside   from  an  illuminating  and 

suggestive   brief   glance  at  the  salient   features  of  his  career,  to  be 

biographical. 

The  historian  has  left  nothing  unrevealed  in  the  life  and  career  of 
Lincoln.  No  incident  connected  therewith;  no  public  or  private  utter 
ance  of  his;  no  scrap  of  paper  bearing  his  slightest  word,  has  been 
permitted  to  escape  the  painstaking  researches  of  his  biographers. 

These  exhaustive  chronicles,  together  with  much  lofty  and  instruct 
ive  literature  bearing  on  the  life  and  character  of  Lincoln,  are  within 
easy  command  of  every  school  boy  and  girl. 

It  is  rather,  therefore,  the  purpose  of  this  pamphlet,  by  a  com 
pilation  of  selections  from  Lincoln's  State  papers,  his  public  addresses, 
his  letters,  his  sayings,  in  which  his  intense  Americanism,  his  rever 
ence  for  the  Constitution  and  Declaration  of  Independence,  his 
patriotic  devotion  to  the  Union,  his  broad  humanity,  are  revealed  so 
vividly  and  eloquently,  to  stimulate  our  rising  generation  in  a  desire 
for  deeper  and  more  appreciative  study  of  this  "  most  American  of 
Americans";  to  impress  it  with  the  fact  that  the  life,  character  and 
achievement  of  Abraham  Lincoln  stand  forth  as  do  those  of  no  other 
American  since  Washington  as  something  beyond  human  example  for 
its  utmost  reverence  and  constant  emulation. 

Aside  from  the  general  application  of  this  purpose  there  lies  a 
peculiar  hope  and  belief  that  this  presentation  of  testimony  to  the 
consuming  patriotism  and  admirable  personality  of  Lincoln  will 
particularly  appeal  to  the  youth  of  foreign  birth  or  alien  parentage 
among  us. 

The  forlornest  immigrant,  fleeing  from  poverty  or  oppression  in 
his  native  land  to  seek  on  our  shores  the  refuge  and  enjoy  the  blessings 
and  privileges  of  our  country  and  its  government,  saved  and  preserved 
to  him  and  to  us  for  all  time  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  left  never  a  more 
wretched,  squalid,  hopeless  home  than  the  one  in  which  that  immortal 
American — Patriot,  Statesman,  Martyr — opened  his  eyes  to  the  light 
of  day.  Yet  he  closed  them  upon  it  the  glorified  tenant  of  a  Nation's 
home  the  most  enviable  on  earth  wherein  man  may  dwell. 


THE    PURPOSE. 


Born  the  lowly,  neglected  backwoods  boy.  Dying  a  greater  than 
the  mightiest  king — not  in  despotic  power  or  the  glitter  of  pomp,  but 
in  the  circumstance  of  splendid  achievement  for  his  country  and  man 
kind. 

Moreover,  the  purpose  of  this  offering  of  suggestive  subjects 
conducive  to  a  closer  study  of  Lincoln's  example  is  not  alone  to  impress 
our  youth  with  the  beauty  and  nobility  of  his  character  and  the  grandeur 
of  his  work  for  their  inspiration  and  emulation.  It  is  likewise  with  the 
hope  of  imbuing  them  still  more  intensely  with  love  for,  and  moving 
them  to  deeper  devotion  to,  a  country  under  the  fulfilling  genius  of 
whose  institutions,  as  Lincoln  understood  and  interpreted  their  spirit 
and  intent,  became  possible  the  evolution  of  a  world  figure  at  once  so 
simple,  so  noble,  so  great  as  he, 


American/' 


From  the  Ode  by  James  Russell  Lowell,  recited  July 
21,  1865,  on  the  occasion  of  the  ceremonies  in 
commemoration  of  Harvard  graduates  who  gave 
their  lives  to  their  country  during  the  Civil  War. 


American 


' 


Life  may  be  given  in  many  ways, 
And  loyalty  to  Truth  sealed 
As  bravely  in  the  closet  as  the  field, 

So  bountiful  is  Fate; 

But  then  to  stand  beside  her, 

When  craven  churls  deride  her, 
To  front  a  lie  in  arms  and  not  to  yield, 

This  shows,  methinks,  God's  plan 

And  measure  of  a  stalwart  man, 

Limbed  like  the  heroic  breeds, 
Who  stand  self-poised  on  manhood's  solid  earth, 
Not  forced  to  frame  excuses  for  his  birth, 
Fed  from  within  with  all  the  strength  he  needs. 
Such  was  he,  our  Martyr-Chief, 

Whom  late  the  Nation  he  had  led, 

With  ashes  on  her  head, 

Wept  with  the  passion  of  an  angry  grief. 

***** 

Nature,  they  say,  doth  dote, 
And  cannot  make  a  man 
Save  on  some  worn-out  plan, 
Repeating  as  by  rote: 
For  him  her  Old- World  moulds  aside  she  threw, 

And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the  breast 
Of  the  unexhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new, 
Wise,  steadfast  in  the  strength  of  God,  and  true. 

How  beautiful  to  see 

Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  indeed, 
Who  loved  his  charge,  but  never  loved  to  lead; 
One  whose  meek  flock  the  people  joyed  to  be, 
Not  lured  by  any  cheat  of  birth, 
But  by  his  clear-grained  human  worth, 
And  brave  old  wisdom  of  sincerity! 

They  knew  that  outward  grace  is  dust; 
They  could  not  choose  but  trust 
In  that  sure-footed  mind's  unfaltering  skill 

And  supple-tempered  will 

That  bent  like  perfect  steel  to  spring  again  and  thrust. 
His  was  no  lonely  mountain  peak  of  mind, 
Thrusting  to  thin  air  o'er  our  cloudy  bars, 
A  sea-mark  now,  now  lost  in  vapors  blind ; 
Broad  prairie,  rather,  genial,  level-lined, 
Fruitful  and  friendly  for  all  human  kind, 
Yet  also  nigh  to  heaven  and  loved  of  loftiest  stars. 

Nothing  of  Europe  here, 
Or,  then,  of  Europe  fronting  mornward  still, 
Ere  any  names  of  Serf  or  Peer 


10  "  THE    FIRST    AMERICAN." 

Could  Nature's  equal  scheme  deface 

And  thwart  her  genial  will; 
Here  was  a  type  of  the  true  older  race, 
And  one  of  Plutarch's  men  talked  with  us  face  to  face. 

I  praise  him  not ;  it  were  too  late ; 
And  some  innative  weakness  there  must  be 
In  him  who  condescends  to  victory 

Such  as  the  Present  gives,  and  cannot  wait, 

Safe  in  himself  as  in  a  fate. 
So  always  firmly  he: 
He  knew  to  bide  his  time, 
And  can  his  fame  abide, 
Still  patient  in  his  simple  faith  sublime, 

Till  the  wise  years  decide. 

Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and  drums, 

Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour, 

But  at  last  silence  comes; 
These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower, 

Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame, 
The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American. 


«*g^       • 


EARLY    HOME    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN, 
At  Elizabethtown,  Hardin  County,  Ky. 

(From   the  Complete  Works  of  Abraham   Lincoln,   by   special   permission 
of  Francis  D.  Tandy  Company.) 


anti  &tee  of  iltncoln. 


anfc  ftigt  of  Xincoitu 

npHOMAS  LINCOLN,  orphaned  in  his  early  boyhood,  a  wandering 
•*>  laborer,  "  ignorant,  needy  and  thriftless,"  of  a  rude  and  rugged 
pioneer  ancestry,  every  generation  of  which  had  struggled  with 
the  hardships,  toils  and  perils  of  frontier  life,  having  wandered  from 
his  native  Virginia  wilderness  to  the  newer  one  of  Kentucky,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-eight  married  Nancy  Hanks,  of  a  family,  like  the 
Lincolns,  with  no  pride  of  ancestry  nor  hope  of  fortune;  a  most 
estimable  woman  withal,  superior  mentally  to  her  husband  and  more 
serious  of  purpose.  This  was  in  1806.  Three  years  later,  to  this 
parentage  that  had  inherited  poverty  and  augmented  the  heritage; 
in  a  miserable  hut — a  one-roomed  cabin  without  floor  or  window- 
in  a  sterile  and  solitary  part  of  that  Kentucky  wilderness ;  "  in  the 
midst  of  the  most  unpromising  circumstances  that  ever  witnessed  the 
advent  of  a  hero  into  the  world,"  a  son  was  born,  on  the  12th  day  of 
February,  1809- 

This  son  they  named  Abraham.  And  from  the  squalor  and  wretch 
edness  of  that  nativity,  through  years  of  toil  and  struggle  and  suffering, 
the  heir  to  it  all  rose  to  be  the  Patriot,  the  Statesman,  the  President, 
the  Liberator — Abraham  Lincoln. 

Thomas  Lincoln,  "  content  if  he  could  keep  body  and  soul  together 
for  himself  and  his  family,  was  ever  seeking,  without  success,  to 
better  his  unhappy  condition  by  moving  on  from  one  such  scene  of 
dreary  desolation  to  another,"  and  when  Abraham  was  four  years  old 
the  family  was  removed  from  that  cabin  in  Hardin  County  to  another 
location.  This  being  no  more  promising  than  the  first,  the  pinch  of 
poverty  remained  with  them,  and  at  last,  in  the  year  1816,  Thomas 
Lincoln  emigrated  from  Kentucky  and  settled  in  Indiana  with  his 
family,  not  far  from  Gentryville,  but  still  in  the  wilderness,  and  in  a 
locality  of  such  unwholesome  environment  that  after  two  years  of 
miserable  existence  there,  first  in  a  cabin  enclosed  on  but  three  sides, 
and  then  in  a  rough  log  hut  without  window  or  door,  and  with  the 
muddy  ground  for  a  floor,  Abraham  Lincoln's  mother  succumbed  to 
the  malarial  infection  of  the  spot  and  died. 

Abraham  was  then  nine  years  old.  The  loss  of  his  mother  was 
his  first  great  heart  sorrow.  He  loved  her  dearly.  "  All  I  have  and 
am,"  Lincoln  said  in  his  years  of  triumph,  "  I  owe  to  my  mother." 

A  year  after  the  death  of  his  wife,  Thomas  Lincoln  returned  to 
Kentucky  and  married  and  brought  to  his  cheerless  Indiana  home  a 
second  wife,  the  widow  Sally  Bush  Johnson.  With  her,  however,  came 
brightness  to  that  lowly  and  darkened  wilderness  home.  She  had 
children  of  her  own,  but  on  the  motherless  children  of  Thomas  Lincoln 
she  bestowed  impartially  her  love  and  care.  All  his  life  Abraham 


14  BIRTH    AND    RISE    OF    LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  remembered  this  timely  friend  of  his  melancholy  childhood 
days  with  a  touching  tenderness,  and  with  constant  solicitude  for  her 
welfare,  comfort  and  happiness. 

Hon.  Joseph  H.  Choate,  in  his  address  on  Lincoln,  delivered  before 
the  Edinburgh  Philosophical  Institution,  November  13,  1QOO,  sympa 
thetically  sketches  the  conditions  that  surrounded  Lincoln  and  had 
their  influence  on  him  at  this  seemingly  hopeless  period  of  his  life. 

"  From  the  time  when  he  could  barely  handle  tools  until  he  attained 
his  majority,"  says  Mr.  Choate,  "Lincoln's  life  was  that  of  a  simple 
farm  laborer,  poorly  clad,  housed  and  fed,  at  work  either  on  his 
father's  wretched  farm,  or  hired  out  to  neighboring  farmers.  *  *  * 
His  whole  schooling,  obtained  during  such  odd  times  as  could  be 
spared  from  grinding  labor,  did  not  amount  in  all  to  as  much  as  one 
year,  and  the  quality  of  the  teaching  was  of  the  lowest  possible  grade, 
including  only  the  elements  of  reading,  writing  and  cyphering. 
*  *  *  But  it  was  the  constant  use  of  the  little  knowledge  which  he 
had  that  developed  and  exercised  his  mental  powers.  After  the  hard 
day's  work  was  done,  while  others  slept,  he  toiled  on,  always  reading  or 
writing.  From  an  early  age  he  did  his  own  thinking  and  made  up  his 
own  mind — invaluable  traits  in  the  future  President." 

Thomas  Lincoln,  fate  having  proved  still  unkind  to  him  in  the  dis 
mal  Indiana  field,  in  1830  emigrated  to  Illinois,  where  he  settled  in  a 
wooded  section,  on  the  Sangamon  River.  There,  with  the  help  of  his 
son,  he  put  up  the  log  cabin  in  which  he  ever  after  lived,  and  where  he 
died. 

Soon  after  the  removal  to  Illinois,  Abraham  Lincoln  came  to  his 
majority.  For  two  years  after  arriving  at  man's  estate  he  was  by 
turns  hired  farm  hand,  clerk  in  a  backwoods  store,  and  ready  with  his 
hand  for  any  work  by  which  he  might  earn  his  daily  bread.  At  twenty- 
three  he  was  still  homeless  and  penniless,  although  his  force  of 
character,  and  the  use  to  which  he  could  readily  put  the  crude  elements 
of  education  he  had  mastered,  had  impressed  the  rude  community  in 
which  he  lived  with  the  belief  that  he  was  destined  for  a  life  and  a 
career  far  above  any  it  had  to  offer  him. 

Then  came  his  opportunity.  The  grim  old  Sac  warrior,  Black 
Hawk,  for  reasons  he  assumed  to  be  just,  had  become  such  a  menace 
to  peaceful  settlers  in  Illinois  that  the  Governor  of  the  State  was 
compelled  to  call  for  volunteers  to  suppress  him  and  his  predatory 
bands.  This  incident  is  known  to  history  as  the  Black  Hawk  War. 
"  I  was  elected  a  captain  of  volunteers,"  Lincoln  wrote  in  1859,  "  a 
success  which  gave  me  more  pleasure  than  any  I  have  had  since." 

The  war  had  no  battle  in  which  Lincoln  was  engaged,  and  all  the 
glory  he  won  was  the  prestige  this  recognition  of  his  consequence 
and  ability  gave  him.  So  great  was  this  that  when  he  returned  home 
to  Sangamon  County  from  the  war  and  put  himself  forward  as  a 


BIRTH    AND    RISE    OF    LINCOLN.  15 

candidate  for  the  Legislature,  he  carried  his  home  district  almost 
unanimously,  although  he  was  defeated  in  the  district  at  large. 

His  local  fame  was  made,  however,  and  in  1834,  1836  and  1838 
he  was  elected  to  the  office  for  which  he  was  defeated  the  first  time, 
which,  he  was  always  proud  of  saying,  was  the  only  time  he  was  ever 
beaten  by  the  people. 

Lincoln  made  his  mark  as  a  legislator,  and  while  serving  in  that 
capacity  studied  law  and  was  admitted  to  practice.  He  kept  his  grasp 
on  the  political  situation,  and  in  1S4<6  was  elected  to  Congress.  He 
served  one  term,  and  declined  a  renomination.  After  retiring  from 
Congress  in  184-9  he  gave  more  of  his  attention  to  the  practice  of 
his  profession  than  to  politics,  and,  as  he  records  of  himself,  was 
losing  interest  in  the  latter  when  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  aroused  him  again. 

This  was  in  1854,  and  it  was  the  beginning  of  Lincoln's  great  career 
which  is  now  familiar  world  history. 

The  "  Missouri  Compromise "  was  the  provision  in  the  act  of 
Congress  admitting  Missouri  into  the  Union  in  1821  as  a  slave  State, 
a  provision  insisted  upon  by  the  growing  anti-slavery  sentiment  in  the 
Northern  States,  and  by  which  slavery  was  forever  prohibited  in  all 
the  territory  of  the  United  States  lying  north  of  latitude  36°  3 1', 
otherwise  known  as  the  Northwest  Territory.  This  guarantee  of  free 
dom  to  that  domain  quieted  for  years  the  slavery  agitation  as  a 
dominating  party  issue,  but  at  last  the  lure  of  that  vast  and  promising 
area  about  which  was  drawn  the  taboo  against  slavery  tempted  the 
cupidity  of  the  pro-slavery  element  of  the  country  beyond  all  protest 
of  patriotism  and  wisdom,  and  to  open  it  to  the  entrance  of  slavery, 
that  element  being  in  control  of  all  branches  of  the  Federal  Govern 
ment,  the  compact  of  1821  was  repudiated  and  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  effected. 

This  aroused  the  slumbering  anti-slavery  sentiment  in  the  non- 
slaveholding  States  of  the  Union,  and  led  to  the  organization  in  1856 
of  the  Republican  party,  "  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  preventing,  by 
constitutional  methods,  the  further  extension  of  slavery." 

Lincoln  rapidly  gained  ascendancy  in  the  councils  of  the  new  party. 
His  unique  personality,  his  forcefulness  of  character,  his  wonderful 
mastery  of  every  phase  of  the  vital  political  issues  agitating  the 
country,  had  brought  him  to  the  height  of  a  conspicuous  national  figure, 
and  it  was  plain  to  every  student  of  the  situation  that  he  was  to  be 
reckoned  with  by  no  means  lightly  in  the  progress  of  events  the  shadow 
of  whose  approach  was  creeping  ominously  over  the  land. 

Verification  of  this  came  four  years  later,  when,  "  at  the  age  of 
fifty-one,  this  child  of  the  wilderness,  this  farm  laborer,  rail-splitter, 
flatboatman — this  surveyor,  lawyer,  orator,  statesman  and  patriot 
found  himself  elected  by  the  great  party  which  was  pledged  to  prevent 


16  BIRTH    AND    RISE    OF    LINCOLN. 

at  all  hazards  the  further  extension  of  slavery,  as  the  chief  magistrate 
of  the  Republic,  bound  to  carry  out  that  purpose,  to  be  the  leader  and 
ruler  of  the  nation  in  its  most  trying  hour." 

His  great  heart  bleeding  as  he  contemplated  the  woes  that  sectional 
hate  and  partisan  frenzy  had  brought  upon  his  beloved  country,  threat 
ening  its  life,  and  for  the  healing  of  which  all  his  earnest  appeals  to 
the  patriotism  of  his  countrymen  and  eager  assurances  of  his  national 
good  will  and  determination  to  abide  by  the  traditions  of  the  Consti 
tution  and  the  Union  had  been  rejected,  Lincoln  bowed  his  shoulders 
to  the  tremendous  burden  of  responsibility  that  met  him  at  the  outset 
of  his  administration. 

With  a  marvelous  patience;  uncomplaining,  even  magnanimous, 
under  misrepresentation  and  calumny  such  as  the  worst  of  men  might 
not  expect  to  have  put  upon  them;  firm  and  unwavering;  sustained  by 
an  abiding  faith  in  the  wisdom  and  justice  and  patriotism  of  his 
policy  and  course  and  in  the  righteousness  of  his  motives;  his  one 
sworn  purpose  to  save  and  preserve  to  posterity  the  government  whose 
destinies  had  been  confided  to  his  care,  he  went  forward  to  the  end. 
Great  was  his  triumph. 

"  He  lived,"  quoting  the  eloquent  words  of  Mr.  Choate's  address, 
"  to  see  his  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  embodied  in  an  amendment 
of  the  Constitution,  adopted  by  Congress  and  submitted  to  the  States 
for  ratification.  *  *  *  It  was  given  him  to  witness  the  surrender 
of  the  Rebel  army  and  the  fall  of  their  capital,  and  the  starry  flag 
that  he  loved  waving  in  triumph  over  the  national  soil.  When  he 
died  by  the  madman's  hand  in  the  supreme  hour  of  victory,  the 
vanquished  lost  their  best  friend,  and  the  human  race  one  of  its 
noblest  examples;  and  all  the  friends  of  freedom  and  justice,  in  whose 
cause  he  lived  and  died,  joined  hands  as  mourners  at  his  grave." 

President  Lincoln  was  shot  by  John  Wilkes  Booth  in  Ford's  The 
atre,  Washington,  on  the  night  of  April  14,  1865.  He  was  removed 
to  the  Petersen  residence,  opposite  the  theatre,  where  he  died  at 
twenty-two  minutes  after  seven  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  April  15, 
aged  56  years,  2  months  and  2  days.  There  was  not  a  loyal  family 
in  the  land  that  did  not  mourn.  He  left  a  fame  immortal — as  solid 
as  justice  and  as  genuine  as  truth.  Under  an  appropriate  monument 
his  remains  lie  entombed  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  and  to-day  a  happy 
and  united  country  is  doing  sacred  honor  to  his  memory,  and  rejoicing 
in  the  day  that  gave  him  birth  to  become  that  country's  savior,  and  to 
place  it  for  all  time  upon  the  firm  foundation  of  Liberty,  that  the  world 
might  hail  it  as  indeed  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  for  the 
oppressed  of  all  lands, 


patriotic  Earnings  anti 


That  bitter  contention  over  the  issues  on  which  the  great 
political  parties  were  divided  at  the  time  Lincoln  began 
his  public  career  bore  toward  a  future  of  evil  portent  to 
the  country  was  early  in  that  career  apparent  in  the 
prophetic  vision  of  his  genius  would  seem  to  be  evident 
from  his  early  utterances,  public  and  private.  They  were 
eloquent  with  appeal  and  warning.  They  testify  to-day 
to  the  utter  unselfishness  of  his  purpose,  to  his  abiding 
devotion  to  country,  to  his  uncompromising  Americanism, 
to  his  intense  love  for  the  Union  which  he  lived  to  save, 
at  the  sacrifice  of  his  own  blameless  life  in  the  saving. 


patriotic  B?arning£  anfc 

FORESEEING  A  DANGER. 

(From  an  address  delivered  before  the  Young  Men's  Lyceum,  Springfield,  111., 
January  27,  1837,  on  "  The  Perpetuation  of  Our  Political  Institutions.") 

WE  FIND  ourselves  under  the  government  of  a  system  of  political 
institutions  conducing  more  essentially  to  the  ends  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty  than  any  of  which  the  history  of  former  times 
tells  us.  We,  when  mounting  the  stage  of  existence,  found  ourselves 
the  legal  inheritors  of  these  fundamental  blessings.  We  toiled  not  in 
the  acquirement  or  establishment  of  them ;  they  are  a  legacy  bequeathed 
us  by  a  once  hardy,  brave,  and  patriotic,  but  now  lamented  and  de 
parted  race  of  ancestors.  Theirs  was  the  task  (and  nobly  they  per 
formed  it)  to  possess  themselves,  and  through  themselves  us,  of  this 
goodly  land,  and  to  uprear  upon  its  hills  and  its  valleys  a  political 
edifice  of  liberty  and  equal  rights ;  'tis  ours  only  to  transmit  these — the 
former  unprofaned  by  the  foot  of  an  invader,  the  latter  undecayed  by 
the  lapse  of  time  and  untorn  by  usurpation — to  the  latest  generation 
that  fate  shall  permit  the  world  to  know.  * 

At  what  point  then  is  the  approach  of  danger  to  be  expected?  I 
answer,  If  it  ever  reaches  us  it  must  spring  up  amongst  us;  it  cannot 
come  from  abroad.  If  destruction  be  our  lot  we  must  ourselves  be  its 
author  and  finisher.  As  a  nation  of  freemen  we  must  live  through  all 
time,  or  die  by  suicide. 

That  our  government  should  have  been  maintained  in  its  original 
form,  from  its  establishment  until  now,  is  not  much  to  be  wondered  at. 
It  had  many  props  to  support  it  through  the  period,  which  now  are 
decayed  and  crumbled  away.  Through  that  period  it  was  felt  by  all 
to  be  an  undecided  experiment;  now  it  is  understood  to  be  a  successful 
one.  Then,  all  that  sought  celebrity  and  fame  and  distinction  expected 
to  find  them  in  the  success  of  that  experiment.  If  they 

succeeded  they  were  to  be  immortalized.  If  they  failed  they 
were  to  be  called  knaves  and  fools,  and  fanatics  for  a  fleeting 
hour;  then  to  sink  and  be  forgotten.  They  succeeded.  The  experi 
ment  is  successful,  and  thousands  have  won  their  deathless  names 
in  making  it  so.  But  the  game  is  caught;  and  I  believe  it  is  true  that 
with  the  catching  end  the  pleasures  of  the  chase.  This  field  of  glory  ii 
harvested,  and  the  crop  is  already  appropriated.  But  new  reapers  will 
arise,  and  they  too  will  seek  a  field.  It  is  to  deny  what  the  history  of 
the  world  tells  us  is  true,  to  suppose  that  men  of  ambition  and  talents 
will  not  continue  to  spring  up  amongst  us.  And  when  they  do,  they 
will  as  naturally  seek  the  gratification  of  their  ruling  passion  as  others 
have  done  before  them.  *  *  *  Is  it  unreasonable,  then,  to  expect 
that  some  man  possessed  of  the  loftiest  genius,  coupled  with  ambition 


20  PATRIOTIC    WARNINGS    AND    APPEALS. 


sufficient  to  push  it  to  its  utmost  stretch,  will  at  some  time  spring  up 
among  us  ?  And  when  such  an  one  does,  it  will  require  the  people  to  be 
united  with  each  other,  attached  to  the  government  and  laws,  and 
generally  intelligent,  to  successfully  frustrate  his  designs. 

REVERENCE  FOR  THE  LAWS. 

(From  the  same  address.) 

Let  every  American,  every  lover  of  liberty,  every  well-wisher  to  his 
posterity  swear  by  the  blood  of  the  Revolution  never  to  violate  in  the 
•least  particular  the  laws  of  the  country,  and  never  to  tolerate  their 
violation  by  others.  *  *  *  Let  reverence  for  the  laws  be  breathed 
by  every  American  mother  to  the  lisping  babe  that  prattles  on  her 
lap;  let  it  be  taught  in  schools,  in  seminaries,  and  in  colleges;  let  it  be 
written  in  primers,  spelling-books,  and  in  almanacs;  let  it  be  preached 
from  the  pulpit,  proclaimed  in  legislative  halls,  and  enforced  in  courts 
of  justice.  And,  in  short,  let  it  become  the  political  religion  of  the 
nation ;  and  let  the  old  and  the  young,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  grave 
and  the  gay,  of  all  sexes  and  tongues  and  colors  and  conditions, 
sacrifice  unceasingly  upon  its  altars. 

While  ever  a  state  of  feeling  such  as  this  shall  universally  or  even 
very  generally  prevail  throughout  the  nation,  vain  will  be  every  effort, 
and  fruitless  every  attempt,  to  subvert  our  national  freedom. 

"  ETERNAL  FIDELITY  TO  THE  JUST  CAUSE." 

(Peroration  of  a  speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives  of  Illinois, 
in  December,  1839,  during  a  discussion  that  suggested  the  subject  of 
dangers  threatening  the  country  through  political  corruption  and  partisan 
frenzy.) 

Many  free  countries  have  lost  their  liberty,  and  ours  may  lose  hers ; 
but  if  she  shall,  be  it  my  proudest  plume,  not  that  I  was  the  last  to  desert, 
but  that  I  never  deserted  her.  I  know  that  the  great  volcano  at  Washing 
ton,  aroused  and  directed  by  the  evil  spirit  that  reigns  there,  is  belching 
forth  the  lava  of  political  corruption  in  a  current  broad  and  deep,  which 
is  sweeping  with  frightful  velocity  over  the  whole  length  and  breadth 
of  the  land,  bidding  fair  to  leave  unscathed  no  green  spot  or  living 
thing;  while  on  its  bosom  are  riding,  like  demons  on  the  waves  of  hell, 
the  imps  of  that  evil  spirit,  and  fiendishly  taunting  all  those  who  dare 
resist  its  destroying  course  with  the  hopelessness  of  their  effort;  and, 
knowing  this,  I  cannot  deny  that  all  may  be  swept  away.  Broken  by 
it  I,  too,  may  be;  bow  to  it  I  never  will.  The  probability  that  we 
fall  in  the  struggle  ought  not  to  deter  us  from  the  support  of  a  cause 
we  believe  to  be  just;  it  shall  not  deter  me.  If  ever  I  feel  the  soul 
within  me  elevate  and  expand  to  those  dimensions  not  wholly  unworthy 


PATRIOTIC    WARNINGS    AND    APPEALS.  21 

of  its  almighty  Architect,  it  is  when  I  contemplate  the  cause  of  my 
country,  deserted  by  all  the  world  beside,  and  I  standing  up  boldly 
and  alone,  and  hurling  defiance  at  her  victorious  oppressors.  Here, 
without  contemplating  consequences,  before  high  heaven  and  in  the  face 
of  the  world,  I  swear  eternal  fidelity  to  the  just  cause,  as  I  deem  it, 
of  the  land  of  my  life,  my  liberty,  and  my  love.  And  who  that  thinks 
with  me  will  not  fearlessly  adopt  the  oath  that  I  take?  Let  none 
falter  who  thinks  he  is  right,  and  we  may  succeed.  But  if,  after  all, 
we  shall  fail,  be  it  so.  We  still  have  the  proud  consolation  of  saying 
to  our  consciences,  and  to  the  departed  shade  of  our  country's  freedom, 
that  the  cause  approved  of  our  judgment,  and  adored  of  our  hearts,  in 
disaster,  in  chains,  in  torture,  in  death,  we  never  faltered  in  defending. 


VIGOROUS  TALK  TO  A  PRESIDENT. 

(From  his  speech  in  Congress,  January  12,  1848.  The  Mexican  War  was  in 
progress  while  Lincoln  was  a  Representative  in  Congress.  He  did  not  be 
lieve  the  war  was  a  just  one  on  the  part  of  our  government,  but  one 
begun  and  waged  for  selfish  political  purposes.  The  first  speech  of  his  in 
Congress  to  be  printed  was  a  criticism  of  the  message  of  President  James 
K.  Polk  regarding  the  war,  and  was  delivered  on  the  above  date.  It 
abounds  in  the  bold,  axiomatic,  aggressive,  thought-impelling  terms  of 
speech  that  stamp  Lincoln's  utterances  with  the  mark  of  genius.) 

Now,  sir,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  very  best  evidence  as 
to  whether  Texas  had  actually  carried  her  revolution  to  the  place 
where  the  hostilities  of  the  present  [Mexican]  war  commenced,  let  the 
President  answer  the  interrogatories  I  proposed  or  some 

other  similar  ones.  Let  him  answer  fully,  fairly,  and  candidly.  Let 
him  answer  with  facts  and  not  with  arguments.  Let  him  remember  he 
sits  where  Washington  sat,  and  so  remembering,  let  him  answer  as 
Washington  would  answer.  As  a  nation  should  not,  and  the  Almighty 
will  not,  be  evaded,  so  let  him  attempt  no  evasion — no  equivocation. 
And  if,  so  answering,  he  can  show  that  the  soil  was  ours  where  the 
first  blood  of  the  war  was  shed — that  it  was  not  within  an  inhabited 
country,  or,  if  within  such,  that  the  inhabitants  had  submitted  them 
selves  to  the  civil  authority  of  Texas  or  of  the  United  States,  then  I 
am  with  him  for  his  justification.  *  *  *  But  if  he  cannot  or  will 
not  do  this — if  on  any  pretense  or  no  pretense  he  shall  refuse  or  omit 
it — then  I  shall  be  fully  convinced  of  what  I  more  than  suspect  already 
—that  he  is  deeply  conscious  of  being  in  the  wrong ;  that  he  feels  the 
blood  of  this  war,  like  the  blood  of  Abel,  is  crying  to  Heaven  against 
him;  that  originally  having  some  strong  motive — what,  I  will  not  stop 
now  to  give  my  opinion  concerning — to  involve  the  two  countries  in  a 
war,  and  trusting  to  escape  scrutiny  by  fixing  the  public  gaze  upon 
the  exceeding  brightness  of  military  glory—that  attractive  rainbow  that 


22  PATRIOTIC    WARNINGS    AND    APPEALS. 

rises  in  showers  of  blood — that  serpent's  eye  that  charms  to  destroy — 
he  plunged  into  it,  and  has  swept  on  and  on  till,  disappointed  in  his 
calculation  of  the  ease  with  which  Mexico  might  be  subdued,  he  now 
finds  himself  he  knows  not  where.  How  like  the  half -insane  mumbling 
of  a  fever  dream  is  the  whole  war  part  of  his  late  message !  *  *  * 
All  this  shows  that  the  President  is  in  nowise  satisfied  with  his  own 
positions.  First  he  takes  up  one,  and  in  attempting  to  argue  us  into  it 
he  argues  himself  out  of  it,  then  seizes  another  and  goes  through  the 
same  process,  and  then,  confused  at  being  able  to  think  of  nothing  new, 
he  snatches  up  the  old  one  again,  which  he  has  some  time  before  cast 
off.  His  mind,  taxed  beyond  his  power,  is  running  hither  and  thither, 
like  some  tortured  creature  on  a  burning  surface,  finding  no  position 
on  which  it  can  settle  down  and  be  at  ease.  *  *  *  At  the  end  of 
about  twenty  months,  during  which  time  our  arms  have  given  us  the 
most  splendid  successes,  every  department  and  every  part,  land  and 
water,  officers  and  privates,  regulars  and  volunteers,  doing  all  that  men 
could  do,  and  hundreds  of  things  which  it  had  ever  before  been  thought 
men  could  not  do — after  all  this,  this  same  President  gives  a  long 
message,  without  showing  us  that  as  to  the  end  he  himself  has  even  an 
imaginary  conception.  As  I  have  before  said,  he  knows  not  where  he 
is.  He  is  a  bewildered,  confounded,  and  miserably  perplexed  man. 
God  grant  he  may  be  able  to  show  there  is  not  something  about  his 
conscience  more  painful  than  all  his  mental  perplexity. 

THE  WAY  FOR  A  YOUNG  MAN  TO  RISE. 

(From  a  letter  to  William  H.  Herndon,  July  10,  1848.) 

I  cannot  but  think  there  is  some  mistake  in  your  impression  of  the 
motives  of  the  old  men.  I  suppose  I  am  now  one  of  the  old  men;  and 
I  declare,  on  my  veracity,  which  I  think  is  good  with  you,  that  nothing 
could  afford  me  more  satisfaction  than  to  learn  that  you  and  others 
of  my  young  friends  at  home  are  doing  battle  in  the  contest,  and 
endearing  themselves  to  the  people,  and  taking  a  stand  far  above  any 
I  have  ever  been  able  to  reach  in  their  admiration.  I  cannot  conceive 
that  other  old  men  feel  differently.  Of  course  I  cannot  demonstrate 
what  I  say ;  but  I  was  young  once,  and  I  am  sure  I  was  never  ungener 
ously  thrust  back.  I  hardly  know  what  to  say.  The  way  for  a  young 
man  to  rise  is  to  improve  himself  every  way  he  can,  never  suspecting 
that  anybody  wishes  to  hinder  him.  Allow  me  to  assure  you  that 
suspicion  and  j  ealousy  never  did  help  any  man  in  any  situation.  There 
may  sometimes  be  ungenerous  attempts  to  keep  a  young  man  down; 
and  they  will  succeed,  too,  if  he  allows  his  mind  to  be  diverted  from  its 
true  channel  to  brood  over  the  attempted  injury.  Cast  about,  and  see 
if  this  feeling  has  not  injured  every  person  you  have  ever  known  to 
fall  into  it. 


PATRIOTIC    WARNINGS    AND    APPEALS.  23 

DANGER  TO  LIBERTY  IN  DISCARDING  THE  ANCIENT 

FAITH. 

(From   the  speech   at   Peoria,   111.,  October   16,  1854,   in  reply   to   Douglas's 
advocacy  of  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.) 

Little  by  little,  but  steadily  as  man's  march  to  the  grave,  we  have 
been  giving  up  the  old  for  the  new  faith.  Near  eighty  years  ago  we 
began  by  declaring  that  all  men  are  created  equal;  but  now  from  that 
beginning  we  have  run  down  to  the  other  declaration,  that  for  some 
men  to  enslave  others  is  a  "  sacred  right  of  self-government."  These 
principles  cannot  stand  together.  They  are  as  opposite  as  God  and 
Mammon;  and  whoever  holds  to  the  one  must  despise  the  other. 
*  *  *  Already  the  liberal  party  throughout  the  world  express  the 
apprehension  "  that  the  one  retrograde  institution  in  America  is  under 
mining  the  principles  of  progress,  and  fatally  violating  the  noblest 
political  system  the  world  ever  saw."  This  is  not  the  taunt  of  enemies, 
but  the  warning  of  friends.  Is  it  quite  safe  to  disregard  it — to  despise 
it?  Is  there  no  danger  to  liberty  itself  in  discarding  the  earliest 
practice  and  first  precept  of  our  ancient  faith  ?  In  our  greedy  chase  to 
make  profit  of  the  negro,  let  us  beware  lest  we  "  cancel  and  tear  in 
pieces  "  even  the  white  man's  charter  of  freedom. 

Our  republican  robe  is  soiled  and  trailed  in  the  dust.  Let  us  repurify 
it.  Let  us  turn  and  wash  it  white  in  the  spirit,  if  not  the  blood,  of 
the  Revolution.  Let  us  turn  slavery  from  its  claims  of  "  moral  right  " 
back  upon  its  existing  legal  rights  and  its  arguments  of  "  necessity." 
Let  us  return  it  to  the  position  our  fathers  gave  it,  and  there  let  it  rest 
in  peace.  Let  us  readopt  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  with  it 
the  practices  and  policy  which  harmonize  with  it.  Let  North  and 
South — let  all  Americans — let  all  lovers  of  liberty  everywhere  join  in 
the  great  and  good  work.  If  we  do  this,  we  shall  not  only  have  saved 
the  Union,  but  we  shall  have  so  saved  it  as  to  make  and  to  keep  it 
forever  worthy  of  the  saving.  We  shall  have  so  saved  it  that  the 
succeeding  millions  of  free  happy  people,  the  world  over,  shall  rise  up 
and  call  us  blessed  to  the  latest  generations. 

"  You  SHALL  NOT." 

(From   a   speech   during  the    Fremont-Buchanan  presidential   campaign,   de 
livered  at  Galena,  111.,  August  1,  1856.) 

You  further  charge  us  with  being  disunionists.  If  you  mean  that 
it  is  our  aim  to  dissolve  the  Union,  I  for  myself  answer  that  it  is 
untrue ;  for  those  who  act  with  me  I  answer  that  it  is  untrue. 
We,  the  majority,  would  not  strive  to  dissolve  the  Union;  and  if  any 
attempt  is  made,  it  must  be  by  you,  who  so  loudly  stigmatize  us  as 
disunionists.  But  the  Union,  in  any  event,  will  not  be  dissolved.  We 
don't  want  to  dissolve  it,  and  if  you  attempt  it  we  won't  let  you. 


24  PATRIOTIC    WARNINGS    AND    APPEALS. 


With  the  mirse  and  sword,  the  army  and  navy  and  treasury,  in  our 
hands  and  at  our  command,  you  could  not  do  it.  This  government 
would  be  very  weak  indeed  if  a  majority  with  a  disciplined  army  and 
navy  and  a  well-filled  treasury  could  not  preserve  itself  when  attacked 
by  an  unarmed,  undisciplined,  unorganized  minority.  All  this  talk 
about  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  is  humbug,  nothing  but  folly.  We 
do  not  want  to  dissolve  the  Union ;  you  shall  not. 

"  A  HOUSE  DIVIDED  AGAINST  ITSELF." 

(From  a  speech  delivered  June  16,  1858,  before  the  Illinois  Republican  State 
Convention  at  Springfield,  111.,  which  had  nominated  him  for  United 
States  Senator;  the  epigrammatic  and  prophetic  declaration  which  stirred 
the  country  as  it  had  never  been  stirred  before  by  any  political  utterance.) 

We  are  now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with 
the  avowed  object  and  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery 
agitation.  Under  the  operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not 
only  not  ceased,  but  has  constantly  augmented.  In  my  opinion,  it 
will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed.  "  A 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  I  believe  this  government 
cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect 
the  Union  to  be  dissolved — I1  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall — but  I 
do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing,  or 
all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further 
spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief 
that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction ;  or  its  advocates  will  push 
it  forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as  well 
as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 

"  THE  ELECTRIC  CORD  "  IN  THE  DECLARATION. 

(From  a  speech  delivered  at  Chicago,  111.,  July  10,  1858,  during  the  Lincoln- 
Douglas  campaign.) 

It  happens  that  we  meet  together  once  every  year,  somewhere  about 
the  4th  of  July.  *  *  *  We  are  now  a  mighty  nation:  we  are 
thirty,  or  about  thirty,  millions  of  people,  and  we  own  and  inhabit 
about  one-fifteenth  part  of  the  dry  land  of  the  whole  earth.  We  run 
our  memory  back  over  the  pages  of  history  for  about  eighty-two  years, 
and  we  discover  that  we  were  then  a  very  small  people,  in  point  of 
numbers  vastly  inferior  to  what  we  are  now,  with  a  vastly  less  extent 
of  country,  with  vastly  less  of  everything  we  deem  desirable  among  men. 
We  look  upon  the  change  as  exceedingly  advantageous  to  us  and  to 
our  posterity,  and  we  fix  upon  something  that  happened  away  back 
as  in  some  way  or  other  being  connected  with  this  rise  of  prosperity. 
We  find  a  race  of  men  living  in  that  day  whom  we  claim  as  our  fathers 
and  grandfathers;  they  were  iron  men;  they  fought  for  the  principles 


PATRIOTIC    WARNINGS    AND    APPEALS.  25 

that  they  were  contending  for;  and  we  understood  that  by  what  they 
then  did  it  has  followed  that  the  degree  of  prosperity  which  we  now 
enjoy  has  come  to  us.  We  hold  this  annual  celebration  to  remind  our 
selves  of  all  the  good  done  in  this  process  of  time,  of  how  it  was  done 
and  who  did  it,  and  how  we  are  historically  connected  with  it;  and  we 
go  from  these  meetings  in  better  humor  with  ourselves — we  feel  more 
attached  the  one  to  the  other,  and  more  firmly  bound  to  the  country 
we  inhabit.  In  every  way  we  are  better  men,  in  the  age,  and  race,  and 
country  in  which  we  live,  for  these  celebrations.  But  after  we  have 
done  all  this,  we  have  not  yet  reached  the  whole.  There  is  something 
else  connected  with  it.  We  have,  besides  these  men — descended  by 
blood  from  our  ancestors — among  us,  perhaps  half  our  people  who  are 
not  descendants  at  all  of  these  men ;  they  are  men  who  have  come  from 
Europe — German,  Irish,  French,  and  Scandinavian — men  that  have 
come  from  Europe  themselves,  or  whose  ancestors  have  come  hither  and 
settled  here,  finding  themselves  our  equal  in  all  things.  If  they  look 
back  through  this  history  to  trace  their  connection  with  those  days  by 
blood,  they  find  they  have  none;  they  cannot  carry  themselves  back 
into  that  glorious  epoch  and  make  themselves  feel  that  they  are  part 
of  us;  but  when  they  look  through  that  old  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence,  they  find  that  those  old  men  say  that  "  We  hold  these  truths  to 
be  self-evident,  that  all  men  are  created  equal,"  and  then  they  feel 
that  that  moral  sentiment  taught  in  that  day  evidences  their  relation 
to  those  men,  that  it  is  the  father  of  all  moral  principles  in  them,  and 
that  they  have  a  right  to  claim  it  as  though  they  were  blood  of  the 
blood,  and  flesh  of  the  flesh,  of  the  men  who  wrote  that  Declaration, 
and  so  they  are.  That  is  the  electric  cord  in  that  Declaration  that 
links  the  hearts  of  patriotic  and  liberty-loving  men  together,  that  will 
link  those  patriotic  hearts  as  long  as  the  love  of  freedom  exists  in  the 
minds  of  men  throughout  the  world. 

FREEDOM'S  RIGHT  FOR  ALL,  WHEREVER  BORN. 

(From  a  letter,  May  17,  1859,  in  answer  to  one  from  German  citizens  asking 
him  if  he  was  for  or  against  a  constitutional  provision  restricting  the 
naturalization  of  foreigners,  then  lately  adopted  by  Massachusetts.) 

Massachusetts  is  a  sovereign  and  independent  State;  and  it  is  no 
privilege  of  mine  to  scold  her  for  what  she  does.  Still,  if  from  what 
she  has  done  an  inference  is  sought  to  be  drawn  as  to  what  I  would  do, 
I  may  without  impropriety  speak  out.  I  say,  then,  that,  as  I  under 
stand  the  Massachusetts  provision,  I  am  against  its  adoption  in  Illinois, 
or  in  any  other  place  where  I  have  a  right  to  oppose  it.  Understanding 
the  spirit  of  our  institutions  to  aim  at  the  elevation  of  men,  I  am 
opposed  to  whatever  tends  to  degrade  them.  I  have  some  little  notoriety 
for  commiserating  the  oppressed  negro;  and  I  should  be  strangely 
inconsistent  if  I  could  favor  any  project  for  curtailing  the  existing 


26  PATRIOTIC    WARNINGS    AND    APPEALS. 


rights  of  white  men,  even  though  born  in  different  lands,  and  speaking 
different  languages  from  myself. 

BROTHERS  or  A  COMMON  COUNTRY. 

(From  remarks  made  to  his  fellow  citizens  at  Springfield,  111.,  at  a  meeting 
held  November  20,  1860,  in  celebration  of  his  election  to  the  Presidency.) 

In  all  our  rejoicings,  let  us  neither  express  nor  cherish  any  hard 
feelings  toward  any  citizen  who  by  his  vote  has  differed  with  us.  Let 
us  at  all  times  remember  that  all  American  citizens  are  brothers  of  a 
common  country,  and  should  dwell  together  in  the  bonds  of  fraternal 
feeling, 


to 


Bidding  a  pathetic  farewell  to  his  old-time  friends  and 
neighbors  in  Springfield,  111.,  February  11,  1861,  Lincoln 
departed  on  the  journey  to  Washington  to  take  up  the 
duties  of  the  great  office  to  which  he  had  been  chosen. 
He  was  greeted  everywhere  on  the  way  with  assurances 
of  loyalty  and  support  in  the  crisis  that  now  seemed 
inevitable.  During  the  journey  he  delivered  some  of  the 
most  eloquent  and  impressive  addresses  of  his  career,  all 
breathing  the  same  supreme  moral  principle,  patriotic 
impulse,  and  firmness  of  purpose  that  had  from  the 
beginning  marked  him  as  a  man  of  wondrous  fitness  for 
the  mighty  task  his  country  had  called  him  to  execute. 


^ournepefc  to  Stajefyingtotu 
A  PATHETIC  PARTING. 

(Lincoln's  farewell  words  on  leaving  his  Springfield  home,  February  11,  1861.) 
Y  FRIENDS  —  No  one,  not  in  my  situation,  can  appreciate  my 


feeling  of  sadness  at  this  parting.  To  this  place,  and  the 
kindness  of  these  people,  I  owe  everything.  Here  I  have  lived 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  have  passed  from  a  young  to  an  old  man. 
Here  my  children  have  been  born,  and  one  is  buried.  I  now  leave,  not 
knowing  when  or  whether  ever  I  may  return,  with  a  task  before  me 
greater  than  that  which  rested  upon  Washington.  Without  the  as 
sistance  of  that  Divine  Being  who  ever  attended  him,  I  cannot  suc 
ceed.  With  that  assistance,  I  cannot  fail.  Trusting  in  Him  who  can 
go  with  me,  and  remain  with  you,  and  be  everywhere  for  good,  let  us 
confidently  hope  that  all  will  yet  be  well.  To  His  care  commending 
you,  as  I  hope  in  your  prayers  you  will  commend  me,  I  bid  you  an 
affectionate  farewell. 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 

(From  his  reply  to  Governor  Morton's  address  of  welcome  at  Indianapolis, 
Ind.,  February  11,  1861.) 

You  have  been  pleased  to  address  yourself  to  me  chiefly  in  behalf 
of  this  glorious  Union  in  which  we  live,  in  all  of  which  you  have  my 
hearty  sympathy,  and,  as  far  as  may  be  within  my  power,  will  have, 
one  and  inseparably,  my  hearty  co-operation.  While  I  do  not  expect, 
upon  this  occasion,  or  until  I  get  to  Washington,  to  attempt  any  lengthy 
speech,  I  will  only  say  that  to  the  salvation  of  the  Union  there  needs 
but  one  single  thing,  the  hearts  of  a  people  like  yours.  When  the  people 
rise  in  mass  in  behalf  of  the  Union  and  the  liberties  of  this  country, 
truly  may  it  be  said,  "  The  gates  of  hell  cannot  prevail  against  them." 
In  all  trying  positions  in  which  I  shall  be  placed,  and  doubtless  I  shall 
be  placed  in  many  such,  my  reliance  will  be  upon  you  and  the  people 
of  the  United  States;  and  I  wish  you  to  remember,  now  and  forever, 
that  it  is  your  business,  and  not  mine  ;  that  if  the  union  of  these  States 
and  the  liberties  of  this  people  shall  be  lost,  it  is  but  little  to  any  one 
man  of  fifty-two  years  of  age,  but  a  great  deal  to  the  thirty  millions 
of  people  who  inhabit  these  United  States,  and  to  their  posterity  in  all 
coming  time.  It  is  your  business  to  rise  up  and  preserve  the  Union  and 
liberty  for  yourselves,  and  not  for  me.  I  appeal  to  you  again  to 
constantly  bear  in  mind  that  not  with  politicians,  not  with  Presidents, 
not  with  office-seekers,  but  with  you,  is  the  question:  Shall  the  Union 
and  shall  the  liberties  of  this  country  be  preserved  to  the  latest 
generations  ? 


SO  As    HE    JOURNEYED    TO    WASHINGTON. 

FOE  SUPPORT  IN  His  GREAT  TASK. 

(From  an  address  to  the  Legislature  of  Ohio  at  Columbus,  February  13,  1861.) 

It  is  true  *  *  *  that  very  great  responsibility  rests  upon  me 
in  the  position  to  which  the  votes  of  the  American  people  have  called 
me.  I  am  deeply  sensible  of  that  weighty  responsibility.  I  cannot 
but  know  what  you  all  know,  that  without  a  name,  perhaps  without  a 
reason  why  I  should  have  a  name,  there  has  fallen  upon  me  a  task 
such  as  did  not  rest  even  upon  the  Father  of  his  Country;  and  so 
feeling,  I  can  turn  and  look  for  that  support  without  which  it  will  be 
impossible  for  me  to  perform  that  great  task.  I  turn,  then,  and  look 
to  the  American  people,  and  to  that  God  who  has  never  forsaken  them. 

WILLING  TO  LIVE  AND  DIE  BY  His  FAITH. 

(Address  in  Independence  Hall,  Philadelphia,  February  22,  1861.) 
I  am  filled  with  deep  emotion  at  finding  myself  standing  in  this 
place,  where  were  collected  together  the  wisdom,  the  patriotism,  the 
devotion  to  principle,  from  which  sprang  the  institutions  under  which 
we  live.  *  *  *  All  the  political  sentiments  I  entertain  have  been 
drawn,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  draw  them,  from  the  sentiments 
which  originated  in  and  were  given  to  the  world  from  this  hall.  I  have 
never  had  a  feeling,  politically,  that  did  not  spring  from  the  senti 
ments  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  *  *  *  I 
have  often  inquired  of  myself  what  great  principle  or  idea  it  was  that 
kept  this  Confederacy  so  long  together.  It  was  not  the  mere  matter  of 
separation  of  the  colonies  from  the  motherland,  but  that  sentiment  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  which  gave  liberty  not  alone  to  the 
people  of  this  country,  but  hope  to  all  the  world,  for  all  future  time. 
It  was  that  which  gave  promise  that  in  due  time  the  weights  would  be 
lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  all  men,  and  that  all  should  have  an 
equal  chance.  This  is  the  sentiment  emphasized  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  Now,  my  friends,  can  this  country  be  saved  on  that 
basis?  If  it  can,  I  will  consider  myself  one  of  the  happiest  men  in  the 
world  if  I  can  help  to  save  it.  *  *  *  But  if  this  country  cannot 
be  saved  without  giving  up  that  principle,  I  was  about  to  say  I  would 
rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot  than  surrender  it.  Now,  in  my  view 
of  the  present  aspect  of  affairs,  there  is  no  need  of  bloodshed  and  war. 
There  is  no  necessity  for  it.  I  am  not  in  favor  of  such  a  course;  and 
I  may  say  in  advance  that  there  will  be  no  bloodshed  unless  it  is  forced 
upon  the  government.  The  government  will  not  use  force  unless  force 
is  used  against  it.  *  *  *  I  may  *  *  *  have  said  something 
indiscreet.  [Cries  of  "  No,  no."]  But  I  have  said  nothing  but  what 
I  am  willing  to  live  by,  and,  if  it  be  the  pleasure  of  Almighty  God,  to 
die  by. 


Jtoter  in  tyt  Crisis, 


No  man  was  called  upon  ever  to  face  so  desperate,  so 
disheartening  a  situation  as  that  which  confronted 
Lincoln  when  he  became  President,  March  4,  1861.  His 
conciliatory  and  patriotic  appeals  had  been  unheeded  by 
the  South,  and  her  leaders  were  already  preparing  for 
war.  The  crisis  was  at  hand,  and  Lincoln  threw  his  great 
heart  and  soul  into  renewed  effort  to  avert  it,  all  in  vain. 


in  tfte 
THE  AMERICAN  UNION  CANNOT  BE  BROKEN. 

(From  Lincoln's  First  Inaugural  Address,  March  4,  1861.) 

I  hold  that,  in  contemplation  of  universal  law  and  of  the  Consti 
tution,  the  Union  of  these  States  is  perpetual.  Perpetuity  is  implied, 
if  not  expressed,  in  the  fundamental  law  of  all  national  governments. 
It  is  safe  to  assert  that  no  government  proper  ever  had  a  provision  in 
its  organic  law  for  its  own  termination.  Continue  to  execute  all  the 
express  provisions  of  our  National  Constitution,  and  the  Union  will 
endure  forever — it  being  impossible  to  destroy  it  except  by  some  action 
not  provided  for  in  the  instrument  itself. 

Again,  if  the  United  States  be  not  a  government  proper,  but  an 
association  of  States  in  the  nature  of  contract  merely,  can  it,  as  a 
contract,  be  peaceably  unmade  by  less  than  all  the  parties  who  made  it? 
One  party  to  a  contract  may  violate  it — break  it,  so  to  speak;  but 
does  it  not  require  all  to  lawfully  rescind  it? 

Descending  from  these  general  principles,  we  find  the  proposition 
that  in  legal  contemplation  the  Union  is  perpetual  confirmed  by  the 
history  of  the  Union  itself.  The  Union  is  much  older  than  the  Con 
stitution.  It  was  formed,  in  fact,  by  the  Articles  of  Association  in 
1774.  It  was  matured  and  continued  by  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  in  1776.  It  was  further  matured,  and  the  faith  of  all  the 
then  thirteen  States  expressly  plighted  and  engaged  that  it  should  be 
perpetual,  by  the  Articles  of  Confederation  in  1778.  And,  finally, 
in  1787  one  of  the  declared  objects  for  ordaining  and  establishing  the 
Constitution  was  "  to  form  a  more  perfect  Union." 

But  if  the  destruction  of  the  Union  by  one  or  by  a  part  only  of 
the  States  be  lawfully  possible,  the  Union  is  less  perfect  than  before 
the  Constitution,  having  lost  the  vital  element  of  perpetuity. 

.  It  follows  from  these  views  that  no  State  upon  its  own  mere  motion 
can  lawfully  get  out  of  the  Union;  that  resolves  and  ordinances  to 
that  effect  are  legally  void ;  and  that  acts  of  violence,  within  any  State 
or  States,  against  the  authority  of  the  United  States,  are  insurrectionary 
or  revolutionary,  according  to  circumstances. 

I  therefore  consider  that,  in  view  of  the  Constitution  and  the  laws, 
the  Union  is  unbroken ;  and  to  the  extent  of  my  ability  I  shall  take  care, 
as  the  Constitution  itself  expressly  enjoins  upon  me,  that  the  laws  of  the 
Union  be  faithfully  executed  in  all  the  States.  Doing  this  I  deem 
to  be  only  a  simple  duty  on  my  part;  and  I  shall  perform  it  so  far  as 
practicable,  unless  my  rightful  masters,  the  American  people,  shall 
withhold  the  requisite  means,  or  in  some  authoritative  manner  direct  the 
contrary.  I  trust  this  will  not  be  regarded  as  a  menace,  but  only  as 
the  declared  purpose  of  the  Union  that  it  will  constitutionally  defend 
and  maintain  itself. 


34  A    MASTER    IN    THE    CRISIS. 

A  LAST  APPEAL  TO  PATRIOTISM  AND  REASON. 

(From  Lincoln's  First  Inaugural  Address,  March  4,  1861.) 

My  countrymen,  one  and  all,  think  calmly  and  well  upon  this  whole 
subject.  Nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by  taking  time.  If  there  be  an 
object  to  any  of  you  to  hurry  in  hot  haste  to  a  step  which  you  would 
never  take  deliberately,  that  object  will  be  frustrated  by  taking  time; 
but  no  good  object  can  be  frustrated  by  it.  Such  of  you  as  are  now 
dissatisfied,  still  have  the  old  Constitution  unimpaired,  and,  on  the 
sensitive  point,  the  laws  of  your  own  framing  under  it;  while  the  new 
administration  will  have  no  immediate  power,  if  it  would,  to  change 
either.  If  it  were  admitted  that  you  who  are  dissatisfied  hold  the  right 
side  in  the  dispute,  there  still  is  no  single  good  reason  for  precipitate 
action.  Intelligence,  patriotism,  Christianity,  and  a  firm  reliance  on 
Him  who  has  never  yet  forsaken  this  favored  land,  are  still  competent 
to  adjust  in  the  best  way  all  our  present  difficulty. 

In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not  in  mine, 
is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  government  will  not  assail 
you.  You  can  have  no  conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors. 
You  have  no  oath  registered  in  heaven  to  destroy  the  government,  while 
I  shall  have  the  most  solemn  one  to  "preserve,  protect  and  defend  it." 

I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  We  must  not 
be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break  our 
bonds  of  affection.  The  mystic  cords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every 
battlefield  and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone  all 
over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union  when  again 
touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature. 


To  SAVE  THE  UNION,  FIRST  OF  ALL. 

(A  letter  to  Horace  Greeley,  editor  of  the  New  York  "  Tribune,"  who,  under 
the  heading  of  "  The  Prayer  of  Twenty  Millions,"  had  addressed  to  Lin 
coln  in  the  editorial  columns  of  his  paper  of  August  20,  1862,  and  over  his 
own  signature,  a  bitter  rebuke  of  Lincoln's  management  of  the  war,  and 
particularly  of  his  policy  in  delaying  the  freeing  of  the  Southern  slaves.) 

I  have  just  read  yours  of  the  19th,  addressed  to  myself  through  the 
New  York  "  Tribune."  If  there  be  in  it  any  statements  or  assumptions 
of  fact  which  I  may  know  to  be  erroneous,  I  do  not,  now  and  here,  con 
trovert  them.  If  there  be  in  it  any  inferences  which  I  may  believe 
to  be  falsely  drawn,  I  do  not,  now  and  here,  argue  against  them.  If 
there  be  perceptible  in  it  an  impatient  and  dictatorial  tone,  I  waive  it 
in  deference  to  an  old  friend  whose  heart  I  have  always  supposed  to 
be  right. 

As  to  the  policy  I  "  seem  to  be  pursuing,"  as  you  say,  I  have  not 
meant  to  leave  any  one  in  doubt. 


A    MASTER    IN    THE    CRISIS.  35 

I  would  save  the  Union.  I  would  save  it  the  shortest  way  under 
the  Constitution.  The  sooner  the  national  authority  can  be  restored, 
the  nearer  the  Union  will  be  "  the  Union  as  it  was."  If  there  be  those 
who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they  could  at  the  same  time  save 
slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them.  If  there  be  those  who  would  not 
save  the  Union  unless  they  could  at  the  same  time  destroy  slavery,  I  do 
not  agree  with  them.  My  paramount  object  in  this  struggle  is  to  save 
the  Union,  and  is  not  either  to  save  or  to  destroy  slavery.  If  I  could 
save  the  Union  without  freeing  any  slave,  I  would  do  it;  and  if  I 
could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves,  I  would  do  it;  and  if  I  could 
save  it  by  freeing  some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that. 
What  I  do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  because  I  believe  it 
helps  to  save  the  Union ;  and  what  I  forbear  I  forbear  because  I  do  not 
believe  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union.  I  shall  do  less  whenever  I 
shall  believe  what  I  am  doing  hurts  the  cause,  and  I  shall  do  more 
whenever  I  shall  believe  doing  more  will  help  the  cause.  I  shall  try  to 
correct  errors  when  shown  to  be  errors,  and  I  shall  adopt  new  views  so 
fast  as  they  shall  appear  to  be  true  views. 

I  have  here  stated  my  purpose  according  to  my  view  of  official 
duty;  and  I  intend  no  modification  of  my  oft-expressed  personal  wish 
that  all  men  everywhere  could  be  free. 

"  FREEDOM  TO  THE  SLAVE  ASSURES  FREEDOM  TO  THE 

FREE." 

(From  the  Annual  Message,  December  1,  1862.  September  22,  1862,  Lincoln 
issued  a  preliminary  proclamation  declaring  that  on  January  1,  1863,  all 
slaves  held  in  States  or  parts  of  States  in  rebellion  should  be  free,  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  terms  of  a  final  proclamation  to  be  issued  on  that  date. 
His  annual  message  to  Congress,  December  1,  1862,  was  largely  devoted 
to  the  presentation  of  the  vital  question.) 

Our  national  strife  springs  not  from  our  permanent  part,  not  from 
the  land  we  inhabit,  not  from  our  national  homestead.  There  is  no 
possible  severing  of  this  but  would  multiply,  and  not  mitigate,  evils 
among  us.  In  all  its  adaptations  and  aptitudes  it  demands  union  and 
abhors  separation.  In  fact,  it  would  ere  long  force  reunion,  however 
much  of  blood  and  treasure  the  separation  might  have  cost. 

Our  strife  pertains  to  ourselves — to  the  passing  generations  of  men ; 
and  it  can  without  convulsion  be  hushed  forever  with  the  passing  of 
one  generation. 

We  say  we  are  for  the  Union.  The  world  will  not  forget  that  we 
say  this.  We  know  how  to  save  the  Union.  The  world  knows  we  do 
know  how  to  save  it.  We — even  we  here — hold  the  power  and  bear  the 
responsibility.  In  giving  freedom  to  the  slave,  we  assure  freedom  to 
the  free— honorable  alike  in  what  we  give  and  what  we  preserve.  We 
shall  nobly  save  or  meanly  lose  the  last,  best  hope  of  earth.  Other 


36  A    MASTER    IN    THE    CRISIS. 

means  may  succeed;  this  could  not  fail.  The  way  is  plain,  peaceful, 
generous,  just — a  way  which,  if  followed,  the  world  will  forever 
applaud,  and  God  must  forever  bless. 

THE  SHACKLES  BROKEN. 

(Final  Emancipation  Proclamation,  January  1,  1863.) 

Whereas,  on  the  twenty-second  day  of  September,  in  the  year  of 
our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two,  a  proclamation 
was  issued  by  the  President  of  the  United  States,  containing,  among 
other  things,  the  following,  to  wit: 

That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves 
within  any  State,  or  designated  part  of  a  State,  the  people  whereof 
shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then, 
thenceforward,  and  forever  free ;  and  the  Executive  Government  of  the 
United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authority  thereof, 
will  recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do 
no  act  or  acts  to  repress  such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts 
they  may  make  for  their  actual  freedom. 

That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January  aforesaid,  by 
proclamation,  designate  the  States  and  parts  of  States,  if  any,  in 
which  the  people  thereof  respectively  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against 
the  United  States;  and  the  fact  that  any  State,  or  the  people  thereof, 
shall  on  that  day  be  in  good  faith  represented  in  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elections  wherein  a 
majority  of  the  qualified  voters  of  such  State  shall  have  participated, 
shall  in  the  absence  of  strong  countervailing  testimony  be  deemed 
conclusive  evidence  that  such  State  and  the  people  thereof  are  not  then 
in  rebellion  against  the  United  States. 

Now  therefore,  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United 
States,  by  virtue  of  the  power  in  me  vested  as  commander-in-chief  of 
the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States,  in  time  of  actual  armed 
rebellion  against  the  authority  and  government  of  the  United  States, 
and  as  a  fit  and  necessary  war  measure  for  suppressing  said  rebellion, 
do,  on  this  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  and  in  accordance  with  my  purpose  so 
to  do,  publicly  proclaimed  for  the  full  period  of  one  hundred  days  from 
the  day  first  above  mentioned,  order  and  designate  as  the  States  and 
parts  of  States  wherein  the  people  thereof,  respectively,  are  this  day 
in  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  the  following,  to  wit : 

Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana  (except  the  parishes  of  St.  Bernard, 
Plaquemines,  Jefferson,  St.  John,  St.  Charles,  St.  James,  Ascension, 
Assumption,  Terre  Bonne,  Lafourehe,  St.  Mary,  St.  Martin,  and  Or 
leans,  including  the  city  of  New  Orleans),  Mississippi,  Alabama, 


A  MASTER  IN  THE  CRISIS.  37 

Florida,  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  North  Carolina,  and  Virginia  (except 
the  forty-eight  counties  designated  as  West  Virginia,  and  also  the 
counties  of  Berkeley,  Accomac,  Northampton,  Elizabeth  City,  York, 
Princess  Ann,  and  Norfolk,  including  the  cities  of  Norfolk  and  Ports 
mouth),  and  which  excepted  parts  are  for  the  present  left  precisely 
as  if  this  proclamation  were  not  issued. 

And  by  virtue  of  the  power  and  for  the  purpose  aforesaid,  I  do 
order  and  declare  that  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  said  designated 
States  and  parts  of  States  are,  and  henceforward  shall  be,  free;  and 
that  the  Executive  Government  of  the  United  States,  including  the 
military  and  naval  authorities  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the 
freedom  of  said  persons. 

And  I  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  people  so  declared  to  be  free  to 
abstain  from  all  violence,  unless  in  necessary  self-defense;  and  I  rec 
ommend  to  them  that,  in  all  cases  when  allowed,  they  labor  faithfully 
for  reasonable  wages. 

And  I  further  declare  and  make  known  that  such  persons  of 
suitable  condition  will  be  received  into  the  armed  service  of  the  United 
States  to  garrison  forts,  positions,  stations,  and  other  places,  and  to 
man  vessels  of  all  sorts  in  said  service. 

And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice,  war 
ranted  by  the  Constitution  upon  military  necessity,  I  invoke  the 
considerate  judgment  of  mankind  and  the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty 
God. 

ON  THE  FIELD  OF  GETTYSBURG. 

(The  Gettysburg  Address.  November  19,  1863,  a  portion  of  the  battlefield 
of  Gettysburg  was  dedicated  and  consecrated  as  a  national  cemetery, 
where  the  remains  of  the  heroes  who  fell  in  that  decisive  struggle  at  arms 
might  find  a  fitting  last  resting  place.  Edward  Everett  was  the  orator 
on  the  occasion,  and  Lincoln  followed  him  in  an  address — "  an  address  of 
dedication  so  pertinent,"  in  the  words  of  Lincoln's  biographers,  Nicolay 
and  Hay,  "  so  brief  yet  so  comprehensive,  so  terse  yet  so  eloquent,  linking 
the  deeds  of  the  present  to  the  thoughts  of  the  future,  with  simple  words, 
in  such  loving,  original,  yet  exquisitely  molded,  maxim-like  phrases  that 
the  best  critics  have  awarded  it  an  unquestionable  rank  as  one  of  the 
world's  masterpieces  in  rhetorical  art.") 

Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth  on  this 
continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the 
proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that 
nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can  long  endure. 
We  are  met  on  a  great  battlefield  of  that  war.  We  have  come  to 
dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  resting-place  for  those  who 
here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nntion  might  live.  It  is  altogether 
fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 


38  A    MASTER    IN    THE    CRISIS. 

But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate — we  cannot  consecrate — 
we  cannot  hallow — this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who 
struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  poor  power  to  add 
or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note  nor  long  remember  what  we 
say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the 
living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  which  they 
who  fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us 
to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us — that  from 
these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which 
they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion ;  that  we  here  highly  resolve 
that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain ;  that  this  nation,  under  God, 
shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom ;  and  that  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 


SEEING  A  GENERAL'S  WORTH  THROUGH  His  FAULTS. 

(Letter  to  General  Joseph  Hooker,  January  26,  1863.) 

General — I  have  placed  you  at  the  head  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac.  Of  course  I  have  done  this  upon  what  appear  to  me  to  be 
sufficient  reasons,  and  yet  I  think  it  best  for  you  to  know  that  there 
are  some  things  in  regard  to  which  I  am  not  quite  satisfied  with  you. 
I  believe  you  to  be  a  brave  and  skillful  soldier,  which  of  course  I  like. 
I  also  believe  you  do  not  mix  politics  with  your  profession,  in  which 
you  are  right.  You  have  confidence  in  yourself,  which  is  a  valuable 
if  not  an  indispensable  quality.  You  are  ambitious,  which,  within 
reasonable  bounds,  does  good  rather  than  harm;  but  I  think  that 
during  General  Burnside's  command  of  the  army  you  have  taken 
counsel  of  your  ambition  and  thwarted  him  as  much  as  you  could,  in 
which  you  did  a  great  wrong  to  the  country  and  to  a  most  meritorious 
and  honorable  brother  officer.  I  have  heard,  in  such  a  way  as  to  believe 
it,  of  your  recently  saying  that  both  the  army  and  the  government 
needed  a  dictator.  Of  course  it  was  not  for  this,  but  in  spite  of  it, 
that  I  have  given  you  the  command.  Only  those  generals  who  gain 
successes  can  set  up  dictators.  What  I  now  ask  of  you  is  military 
success,  and  I  will  risk  the  dictatorship.  The  government  will  support 
you  to  the  utmost  of  its  ability,  which  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  it 
has  done  and  will  do  for  all  commanders.  I  much  fear  that  the  spirit 
which  you  have  aided  to  infuse  into  the  army,  of  criticizing  their  com 
mander  and  withholding  confidence  from  him,  will  now  turn  upon  you. 
I  shall  assist  you  as  far  as  I  can  to  put  it  down.  Neither  you  nor 
Napoleon,  if  he  were  alive  again,  could  get  any  good  out  of  an  army 
while  such  a  spirit  prevails  in  it;  and  now  beware  of  rashness.  Beware 
of  rashness,  but  with  energy  and  sleepless  vigilance  go  forward  and 
give  us  victories. 


A    MASTER    IN    THE    CRISIS.  39 

"  THAT  WE  MAY  NOT  LOSE  OUR  BIRTHRIGHT." 

(From  an  address  to  the  166th  Ohio  regiment,  August  22,  1864.) 
I  almost  always  feel  inclined,  when  I  happen  to  say  anything  to 
soldiers,  to  impress  upon  them,  in  a  few  brief  remarks,  the  importance 
of  success  in  this  contest.  It  is  not  merely  for  to-day,  but  for  all  time 
to  come,  that  we  should  perpetuate  for  our  children's  children  that 
great  and  free  government  which  we  have  enjoyed  all  our  lives.  I  beg 
you  to  remember  this,  not  merely  for  my  sake,  but  for  yours.  I 
happen,  temporarily,  to  occupy  this  White  House.  I  am  a  living 
witness  that  any  one  of  your  children  may  look  to  com/e  here  as  my 
father's  child  has.  It  is  in  order  that  each  one  of  you  may  have, 
through  this  free  government  which  we  have  enjoyed,  an  open  field 
and  a  fair  chance  for  your  industry,  enterprise,  and  intelligence;  that 
you  may  all  have  equal  privileges  in  the  race  of  life,  with  all  its 
desirable  human  aspirations.  It  is  for  this  the  struggle  should  be 
maintained,  that  we  may  not  lose  our  birthright — not  only  for  one,  but 
for  two  or  three  years.  The  nation  is  worth  fighting  for,  to  secure 
such  an  inestimable  jewel. 

"WITH  MALICE  TOWARD  NONE;  WITH  CHARITY  FOR 

ALL." 

(Second  Inaugural  Address,  March  4,  1865.  Lincoln  was  re-elected  President 
in  1864.  The  work  he  had  done,  against  armed  foes  in  front  and  unarmed 
foes,  masked  as  friends,  behind,  was  endorsed  by  an  overwhelming  ma 
jority.  His  second  inaugural  address  is  one  of  the  immortal  classics  of 
our  political  literature.) 

Fellow-countrymen — At  this  second  appearing  to  take  the  oath  of 
the  presidential  office,  there  is  less  occasion  for  an  extended  address 
than  there  was  at  the  first.  Then  a  statement,  somewhat  in  detail,  of 
the  course  to  be  pursued,  seemed  fitting  and  proper.  Now,  at  the 
expiration  of  four  years,  during  which  public  declarations  have  been 
constantly  called  forth  on  every  point  and  phase  of  the  great  contest 
which  still  absorbs  the  attention  and  engrosses  the  energies  of  the 
nation,  little  that  is  new  could  be  presented.  The  progress  of  OUT 
arms,  upon  which  all  else  chiefly  depends,  is  as  well  known  to  the 
public  as  to  myself;  and  it  is,  I  trust,  reasonably  satisfactory  and 
encouraging  to  all.  With  high  hope  for  the  future,  no  prediction  in 
regard  to  it  is  ventured. 

On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this  four  years  ago,  all  thoughts 
were  anxiously  directed  to  an  impending  civil  war.  All  dreaded  it- 
all  sought  to  avert  it.  While  the  inaugural  address  was  being  delivered 
from  this  place,  devoted  altogether  to  saving  the  Union  without  war, 
insurgent  agents  were  in  the  city  seeking  to  destroy  it  without  war- 
seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union,  and  divide  effects,  by  negotiation.  Both 


40  A    MASTER    IN    THE    CRISIS. 

parties  deprecated  war;  but  one  of  them  would  make  war  rather  than 
let  the  nation  survive;  and  the  other  would  accept  war  rather  than 
let  it  perish.  And  the  war  came. 

One-eighth  of  the  whole  population  were  colored  slaves,  not  dis 
tributed  generally  over  the  Union,  but  localized  in  the  southern  part  of 
it.  These  slaves  constituted  a  peculiar  and  powerful  interest.  All 
knew  that  this  interest  was,  somehow,  the  cause  of  the  war.  To 
strengthen,  perpetuate,  and  extend  this  interest  was  the  object  for 
which  the  insurgents  would  rend  the  Union,  even  by  war;  while  the 
government  claimed  no  right  to  do  more  than  to  restrict  the  territorial 
enlargement  of  it. 

Neither  party  expected  for  the  war  the  magnitude  or  the  duration 
which  it  has  already  attained.  Neither  anticipated  that  the  cause  of 
the  conflict  might  cease  with,  or  even  before,  the  conflict  itself  should 
cease.  Each  looked  for  an  easier  triumph,  and  a  result  less  funda 
mental  and  astounding.  Both  read  the  same  Bible,  and  pray  to  the 
same  God;  and  e?^h  invokes  His  aid  against  the  other.  It  may  seem 
strange  that  any  men  should  dare  to  ask  a  just  God's  assistance  in 
wringing  their  bread  from  the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces;  but  let  us 
judge  not,  that  we  be  not  judged.  The  prayers  of  both  could  not  be 
answered — that  of  neither  has  been  answered  fully. 

The  Almighty  has  His  own  purposes.  "  Woe  unto  the  world  because 
of  offenses !  for  it  must  needs  be  that  offenses  come ;  but  woe  to  that 
man  by  whom  the  offense  cometh."  If  we  shall  suppose  that  American 
slavery  is  one  of  those  offenses  which,  in  the  providence  of  God,  must 
needs  come,  but  which,  having  continued  through  His  appointed  time, 
He  now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  He  gives  to  both  North  and  South 
this  terrible  war,  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offense  came, 
shall  we  discern  therein  any  departure  from  those  divine  attributes 
which  the  believers  in  a  living  God  always  ascribe  to  Him?  Fondly 
do  we  hope — fervently  do  we  pray — that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war 
may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all 
the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondsman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of 
unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  by 
the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was  said 
three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  "  The  judgments  of 
the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether." 

With  malice  toward  none;  with  charity  for  all;  with  firmness  in 
the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the 
work  we  are  in;  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds;  to  care  for  him  who 
shall  have  borne  the  battle,  and  for  his  widow,  and  his  orphan — to  do 
all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace  among  our 
selves,  and  with  all  nations. 


HOUSE   IX  WHICH   LIXCOLX   DIED, 
No.  516  Tenth  St.,  X.  W.,  opposite  Ford's  Theatre,  Washington,  I).  C. 

(Copyright  by  Francis  D.  Tandy  Company.) 


f|te  <§reat  Human 


Firm  as  a  rock,  and  unbending  in  holding  men  to  their 
duty,  Lincoln  was  yet  so  overflowing  with  human  sym 
pathy  and  mercy  that  even  the  pressure  and  weight  of 
momentous  and  distressing  State  affairs  did  not  deter  him 
from  expressing  the  one  or  granting  the  other.  Troubled 
as  his  great  heart  constantly  was  in  those  days,  it  was 
never  so  full  of  trouble  that  he  had  not  room  in  it  for 
comfort  and  cheer  and  consolation  for  others.  Even  the 
petty  and  passing  griefs  of  childhood  claimed  his  sym 
pathy  at  all  times.  He  ever  brought  smiles  from  tears. 


THE  Loss  OF  ''TAD'S"  NANNY  GOAT. 

(From  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Lincoln,  August  8,  1863.    "Tad"  was  Lincoln's  little 
boy,  the  pet  of  the  White  House.) 

Tell  dear  Tad  poor  "  Nanny  Goat "  is  lost,  and  Mrs.  Cuthbert  and 
I  are  in  distress  about  it.  The  day  you  left,  Nanny  was  found  resting 
herself  and  chewing  her  little  cud  on  the  middle  of  Tad's  bed;  but 
now  she's  gone!  The  gardener  kept  complaining  that  she  destroyed 
the  flowers,  till  it  was  concluded  to  bring  her  down  to  the  White  House. 
This  was  done,  and  the  second  day  she  had  disappeared  and  has  not 
been  heard  of  since.  This  is  the  last  we  know  of  poor  "  Nanny." 


THE  CASE  OF  A  MAN  NAMED  KING. 

(Telegrams  to  General  Meade   from  the  Executive  Mansion,   November  20, 

1863.) 

If  there  is  a  man  by  the  name  of  King  under  sentence  to  be  shot, 
please  suspend  execution  till  further  order,  and  send  record. 

An  intelligent  woman  in  deep  distress,  called  this  morning,  saying 
her  husband,  a  lieutenant  in  the  Army  of  Potomac,  was  to  be  shot 
next  Monday  for  desertion,  and  putting  a  letter  in  my  hand,  upon 
which  I  relied  for  particulars,  she  left  without  mentioning  a  name  or 
other  particular  by  which  to  identify  the  case.  On  opening  the  letter 
I  found  it  equally  vague,  having  nothing  to  identify  by,  except  her 
own  signature,  which  seems  to  be  "  Mrs.  Anna  S.  King."  I  could  not 
again  find  her.  If  you  have  a  case  which  you  shall  think  is  probably 
the  one  intended,  please  apply  my  dispatch  of  this  morning  to  it. 


A  MOTHER'S  SACRIFICE  UPON  THE  ALTAR  OF  FREEDOM. 

(Letter  to  Mrs.  Bixby,  November  21,  1864.) 

Dear  Madam — I  have  been  shown  in  the  files  of  the  War  Department 
a  statement  of  the  Adjutant-General  of  Massachusetts  that  you  are  the 
mother  of  five  sons  who  have  died  gloriously  on  the  field  of  battle. 
I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be  any  words  of  mine  which  should 
attempt  to  beguile  you  from  the  grief  of  a  loss  so  overwhelming.  But 
I  cannot  refrain  from  tendering  to  you  the  consolation  that  may  be 
found  in  the  thanks  of  the  Republic  they  died  to  save.  I  pray  that 
our  heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the  anguish  of  your  bereavement, 
and  leave  you  only  the  cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and  lost,  and 
the  solemn  pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly  a  sacrifice 
upon  the  altar  of  freedom. 


His    GREAT    HUMAN    SYMPATHY. 


IN  BEHALF  OF  A  SOLDIER'S  WIDOWED  MOTHER. 

(Letter  to  Secretary  Stanton,  March  1,  1864.) 

My  Dear  Sir  —  A  poor  widow,  by  the  name  of  Baird,  has  a  son  in 
the  army,  that  for  some  offense  has  been  sentenced  to  serve  a  long  time 
without  pay,  or  at  most  with  Very  little  pay.  I  do  not  like  this  punish 
ment  of  withholding  pay  —  it  falls  so  very  hard  upon  poor  families. 
After  he  had  been  serving  in  this  way  for  several  months,  at  the  tearful 
rppeal  of  the  poor  mother,  I  made  a  direction  that  he  be  allowed  to 
enlist  for  a  new  term,  on  the  same  conditions  as  others.  She  now 
comes,  and  says  she  cannot  get  it  acted  upon.  Please  do  it. 

RECOGNIZING  THE  SYMPATHY  OF  YOUNG  HEARTS. 

(Letter  to  Mrs!  Horace  Mann,  Washington,  April  5,  186-1.) 
Madam  —  The  petition  of  persons  under  eighteen,  praying  that  I 
would  free  all  slave  children,  and  the  heading  of  which  petition  it 
appears  you  wrote,  was  handed  me  a  few  days  since  by  Senator 
Sumner.  Please  tell  these  little  people  I  am  very  glad  their  young 
hearts  are  so  full  of  just  and  generous  sympathy,  and  that,  while  I 
have  not  the  power  to  grant  all  they  ask,  I  trust  they  will  remember 
that  God  has,  and  that,  as  it  seems,  He  wills  to  do  it. 


Cfje  **^tuml  fester's"  Hecantatton. 


Lincoln,  from  the  time  he  became  a  political  leader,  and 
during  his  brief  term  of  power,  was  doubtless  the  object 
of  more  abuse,  villification  and  ridicule  than  any  other 
man  in  the  world.  Not  only  was  he  the  victim  in  this 
respect  of  defamers  at  home,  but  London  Punch,  the 
influence  of  whose  satire  was  great  in  England,  where  it 
was  important  to  the  Union  cause  that  favor  should  pre 
vail,  was  offensively  conspicuous  in  outrageous  caricature 
of  Lincoln  and  in  scurrilous  references  to  him  and  the 
cause.  But  when  he  fell  by  the  hand  of  the  assassin 
reviling  everywhere  changed  to  homage,  and  in  none  of 
his  sometime  detractors  was  the  change  more  eloquent 
and  completely  magnanimous  than  that  shown  in  Punch's 
recantation.  Hence  the  great  significance  of  this  poem. 


€(je  "&cuml  *$tgttt'$"  Recantation. 

(From  London  Punch,  May  6,  1865.) 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
Foully  Assassinated  April  14,  1865. 

You  lay  a  wreath  on  murdered  LINCOLN'S  bier, 
You,  who  with  mocking  pencil  wont  to  trace, 

Broad  for  the  self-complacent  British  sneer, 

His  length  of  shambling  limb,  his  furrowed  face, 

His  gaunt,  gnarled  hands,  his  unkempt,  bristling  hair, 
His  garb  uncouth,  his  bearing  ill  at  ease, 

His  lack  of  all  we  prize  as  debonair, 

Of  power  or  will  to  shine,  of  art  to  please. 

You,  whose  smart  pen  backed  up  the  pencil's  laugh, 
Judging  each  step,  as  though  the  way  were  plain; 

Reckless,  so  it  could  point  its  paragraph, 
Of  chief's  perplexity,  or  people's  pain. 

Beside  this  corpse  that  bears  for  winding  sheet 
The  Stars  and  Stripes  he  lived  to  rear  anew, 

Between  the  mourners  at  his  head  and  feet, 
Say,  scurril- jester,  is  there  room  for  you? 

Yes,  he  had  lived  to  shame  me  from  my  sneer, 
To  lame  my  pencil  and  confute  my  pen — 

To  make  me  own  this  kind  of  prince's  peer, 
This  rail-splitter  a  true-born  king  of  men. 

My  shallow  judgment  I  had  learned  to  rue, 
Noting  how  to  occasion's  height  he  rose, 

How  his  quaint  wit  made  home-truth  seem  more  true, 
How,  iron-like,  his  temper  grew  by  blows. 

How  humble,  yet  how  hopeful  he  could  be, 
How  in  good  fortune  and  in  ill  the  same; 

Nor  bitter  in  success  nor  boastful  he, 

Thirsty  for  gold,  nor  feverish  for  fame. 

He  went  about  his  work — such  work  as  few 

Ever  had  laid  on  head  and  heart  and  hand — 

As  one  who  knows,  where  there's  a  task  to  do, 

Man's  honest  will  must  Heaven's  good  grace  command. 

Who  trusts  the  strength  will  with  the  burden  grow, 
That  God  makes  instruments  to  work  his  will, 

If  but  that  will  we  can  arrive  to  know, 

Nor  tamper  with  the  weights  of  good  and  ill. 


48  THE    "  SCURRIL    JESTER'S  "    RECANTATION. 

So  he  went  forth  to  battle,  on  the  side 

That  he  felt  clear  was  Liberty's  and  Right's, 

As  in  his  peasant  boyhood  he  had  plied 

His  warfare  with  rude  Nature's  thwarting  mights — 

The  uncleared  forests,  the  unbroken  soil, 

The  iron-bark,  that  turns  the  lumberer's  axe, 

The  rapid,  that  o'erbears  the  boatman's  toil, 

The  prairie,  hiding  the  mazed  wanderer's  tracks. 

The  ambushed  Indian,  and  the  prowling  bear — 

Such  were  the  needs  that  helped  his  youth  to  train ; 

Rough  culture — but  such  trees  large  fruit  may  bear, 
If  but  their  stocks  be  of  right  girth  and  grain. 

So  he  grew  up,  a  destined  work  to  do, 

And  lived  to  do  it;  four  long-suffering  years' 

Ill-fate,  ill-feeling,  ill-report  lived  through, 

And  then  he  heard  the  hisses  change  to  cheers, 

The  taunts  to  tribute,  the  abuse  to  praise, 

And  took  both  with  the  same  unwavering  mood: 

Till,  as  he  came  on  light,  from  darkening  days, 

And  seemed  to  touch  the  goal  from  where  he  stood, 

A  felon  hand,  between  the  goal  and  him, 

Reached  from  behind  his  back,  a  trigger  prest — 

And  those  perplexed  and  patient  eyes  were  dim, 

Those  gaunt,  long-laboring  limbs  were  laid  to  rest ! 

The  words  of  mercy  were  upon  his  lips, 
Forgiveness  in  his  heart  and  in  his  pen, 

When  this  vile  murderer  brought  swift  eclipse 

To  thoughts  of  peace  on  earth,  good-will  to  men. 

The  Old  World,  and  the  New,  from  sea  to  sea, 
Utter  one  voice  of  sympathy  and  shame! 

Sore  heart,  so  stopped  when  it  beat  high, 

Sad  life,  cut  short  just  as  its  triumph  came. 

A  deed  accurst!  Strokes  have  been  struck  before 
By  the  assassin's  hand,  whereof  men  doubt 

If  more  of  horror  or  disgrace  they  bore; 

But  thy  foul  crime,  like  Cain's,  stands  darkly  out. 

Vile  hand,  that  brandest  murder  on  a  strife, 

Whate'er  its  grounds,  stoutly  and  nobly  striven; 

And  with  the  martyr's  crown  crownest  a  life 
Much  to  praise,  little  to  be  forgiven ! 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


MAR    5  1961 


ManufactonJ  ky 
6AYLORD  BROS.  ln«. 

Syr«cu»«,  N.  Y. 
Stockton,  Calif. 


